EVENTS

Compiling a list

Radical Islamists are compiling a list of unmarried mothers in northern Mali, raising fears of cruel punishments such as stoning, amputations and executions, a senior United Nations official said.

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In July, they forced a man and a woman into two holes and stoned them to death for committing adultery as terrified residents quietly watched in remote Aguelhok town.

The U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, who just returned from a visit to Mali, said there are reports that Islamist groups are compiling lists of women who have had children out of wedlock, or who were unmarried and pregnant.

“The threat is there, it’s real and people live with it and they are afraid of those lists,” Ivan Simonovic said. “This could indicate that these women are at imminent risk of being subjected to cruel and inhumane punishment.”

And it’s all just a racket. It’s a big pimping operation.

Women and children face greater risk, he said.

More women in the region are ending up in forced marriages. And with wives costing less than $1,000, husbands are also reselling the women, according to Simonovic.

He said the process is “a smokescreen for enforced prostitution and rapes” occurring in the region.

“Civil and political rights are being severely restricted as a result of the imposition of a strict interpretation of sharia law, and systemic cruel and inhumane punishments are being implemented,” Simonovic said.

The Islamists don’t have to listen to Simonovic so hahaha and neener neener. They can do anything they want to. Simonovic is not the boss of them.

“We don’t have to answer to anyone over the application of sharia,” Islamist commissioner Aliou Toure said in August. “This is the form of Islam practiced for thousands of years.”

No, 1400, actually. Anyway guess what, humans are able to improve over time, so the fact that a practice has been around for a long time does not automatically mean it’s a good practice.

But Toure and his friends have the upper hand, and that’s what counts.